Interesting Timing
by TinyPrints
Summary: Draco needs a law changed. He'll have to go through Granger to do it. What he didn't expect was a mystery to solve, an office to explore, and a rather interesting woman to help.
1. Chapter 1

No good deed goes unpunished, Draco thought grimly.

It wasn't like he hadn't tried to do the occasional, rare good deed. In the aftermath of the Second War, Draco had been given plenty of time to sort out his priorities. Being held in an odd quasi-probationary period will do that to a man. He had realized that if he didn't want to be counting the marble blocks in the family manor for the rest of his life, the occasional good deed might do wonders.

So he dated Astoria for a while, regardless of the complete lack of spark. He had a duty to his family, she was well placed in the rapidly reshuffling system, so on and so forth. Unfortunately, catching Tori in between the sheets with a random bloke from a girls night out stopped Draco from any further good deeds in her direction.

Donating a large portion of the Malfoy fortune had an immediate positive effect-the masses and media loved it, and Draco managed to separate his reputation from that of his father (who fortunately had found a permanent vacation home well out of the country. Universal hatred does that to a person, as well as an outstanding arrest warrant.) What Draco did not realize was that his privacy was sacrificed along with the funds. Once his name had been thrown into the spotlight, he found it was devilishly tricky to push it back into the shadows.

While looking to replenish the funds donated, Draco took the largest risk yet-he became an entrepreneur. Despite Snape's godawful teaching (Slytherin be damned, Severus was a terrible teacher!) Draco had a passion for brewing research. He hoped to make his name with breakthroughs and advances. And that he did-unfortunately, the masses knew his beauty and personal health care line of products, and those were the ones that sold like hotcakes. No one seemed to care about his post-Cruciatus remedies, or creams that slowly restored eyesight.

And lately, Draco had his head against the desk for his latest attempt at a good deed. His old school chum, Greg Goyle, needed a job. For some reason, no one would hire a former child Death Eater without enough brain to use his muscle properly. So Draco gave Greg the position of Researcher's Assistant, paid the man enough to support a second-line professional Quidditch player, and set Greg running for tea and sending messages.

Greg was alright at the tea-he just had to push a shiny red button and the tea would come out all ready to go. If the message was written down, Greg could drop it into the mailbox. But it seemed that Greg could not, would not, was physically incapable of speaking with another human being and not royally botching it up. Draco worked around this most of the time, as Greg's red-button tea worked wonders on early mornings. But occasionally, Draco just wanted to smash his head against his desk.

The morning had started out fair enough-Greg brought the tea in, Draco met with the department heads for the weekly status report, and then retreated to his personal lab for the rest of the day. His day began to plummet when his latest hopeful breakthrough singed his eyebrows off. It got worse when a fellow researcher quipped at lunch that he could just use the Narcissa Hair Growth Gel. When his secretary Martha brought in the daily mail, the day was sealed.

Someone had finally managed to push through legislation mandating cauldron bottom thickness.

Draco had luckily escaped all lectures on cauldron bottoms in school, as he would have rather seen himself strangled by a Venomous Tentacula than spend time with the interested parties. But while making a fortune on potions, he had been forced to become educated on the various pollution restrictions, ingredient safety certification processes, employee practices, and equipment regulations. After about two hours of wading through paper, Draco hired a savvy lawyer to do the reading for him, and to update him when new laws were in progress. The law he held in his hand informed him that all cauldrons had to be at least 6.725 centimetres in thickness at all points of construction.(Rather, that's what Allen, his lawyer, had scrawled on the bottom of the sheets. The actual law was at least an inch-thick of paper, and held more legal jargon than Draco ever cared to know.)

For the home brewer, cauldron bottom thickness was hardly a concern. For a large production like Draco's, however, thickness had an effect. A thinner cauldron typically would heat faster, and some metals held heat differently based on magical composition. A thicker cauldron meant longer production time. A delay of even five seconds per product could add up to thousands in Galleon loss. Which was something Draco most emphatically did not want to see.

So Draco sent Greg to the Ministry to file a complaint. Draco might have been banking on the fact that, as a whole, the Ministry was comprised of bigger idiots that Greg could ever hope to be. So Draco wrote out word-for-word what he wanted Greg to say to the poor schmucks and sent him on his merry way.

When Greg came back a quivering, shaking mess, Draco's head met the desk. And then met the desk again. And then met the desk once more, just in case the first two forceful greetings didn't get the message across.

Draco asked, "What happened, Greg?"

Whimper. "Did you read the paper to the nice people at the Ministry"

Odd choke sound.

"Did they give you anything?"

Greg brightened, then rummaged though his pockets, pulling out a crumpled sheet of paper. Scanning it, Draco noted that it was a confirmation of complaint, and that the Ministry would review it and get back to them within 6-12 months. Lovely. He was about to put it on his desk and forget it for a moment when he noticed the signature. A very memorable signature. H J Granger. "Greg, did Hermione Granger speak with you?"

Gulp. "She was scarier than before."

Hmm. Draco had never thought of the Granger as particularly scary, but then he had an above-average intelligence. Greg didn't like anyone who used more than three syllables on a regular basis. No matter. Six months was not acceptable for the business, and that was if they even bothered to truly consider the damn law.

When you want a job right, you have to do it yourself.

Draco wondered when his life could be summarized by trite phrases.


	2. Chapter 2

It would be much easier, Draco thought, if one could actually find offices in the Ministry of Magic.

Upon entering the building, he had been redirected 17 times, lost five times, stuck in three meaningless conversations, and had one very awkward encounter with an ex-girlfriend. He had seen every level at least once, never wanted to go near the Department of Mysteries ever again (very weird blokes down there) and was ready for a bathroom break. But he had finally found a tiny, cluttered office in a tiny, cluttered hallway in a far-off section of the magically massive building. And in that office was the official he sought-a Ms. Hermione Granger, office of International Law Review.

The office was unremarkable-a desk and loveseat sofa stuffed in a tiny space, entirely surrounded by book-stuffed shelves. At the desk was one of Draco's archrivals from Hogwarts, the Golden Girl of the Golden Trio, frizzy haired Granger. Just as dull and boring as ever.

(If her hair seemed to have calmed down a bit, Draco pretended not to notice.)

Now, Draco was a sensible man. He knew that coming in and making fustrated demands to repeal a law would not go over well with Granger. She probably still hated his guts, and he didn't like her much either. He was prepared for a fight.

What he was not expecting was a mild-mannered, "How may I help you today?", followed by an expectant quiet.

Draco replied, "I need to speak to you about some stupid law you just passed, Granger, and I need it gone."

Still no anger. "Which law are you referring to, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Er...the cauldron bottoms one."

"Of course. One moment..." She rifled through a drawer in her desk, then pulled out some paperwork. "I.W.L. 1432.4 regarding potioneering equipment standards. I'm afraid that you'll have to fill out the following documentation and submit it to this office. We'll send it on to the appropriate parties and you should expect a response within six to nine months at the earliest."

Six to nine months! Was she mad? Flipping though the paperwork confirmed her insanity. "Twelve supporting statements, Granger? And documented proof? And only a maybe after waiting over half a year? I don't have that kind of time! I need this changed now!"

The bi-witch checked her watch. "I'm sorry, but-"

"Bullshit! This isn't a procedure, its torture! If it is the procedure, its a fucking stupid one!"

She checked her watch a second time-Draco couldn't help but think that rude of her-and tried to speak again. "That is the way this office works, Mr. Malfoy, and I'm afraid you are going to have to work with it. Now, if you'll excuse me..."

"No! You are not just excused! I mean to have this hammered out now, because I have better things to do than sit in some dingy Ministry office!" He paused, thought about making it personal, decided why the hell not, and continued. "You might have nothing more interesting to do then bury men in paperwork, Granger, but I didn't pick up some no-end job for that!"

Granger shrugged. Draco realized how little this Granger matched the Hogwarts days model-a boring lass, but one with some bite and temper to her. This one had just been...dull. And boring. And not nearly as angry as she should have been. Hmm.

Granger checked her watch-again-and stood. "I really must apologize, but I have to go now. Please deliver your completed paperwork back to this office, and if you have any questions owl or floo the appropriate office. You may see yourself out."

And with that, she left the tiny office. Draco followed her out (after scanning the office for any valuable blackmail material, of course-he had no intention of completing the ridiculous forms) but didn't see her just down the hall like one would expect.

He did see her coming out of a public restroom off of the main hallway. Really?

Her back had been facing him, so he called out, "Are you serious, Granger? You stopped the meeting for a bathroom break? Is your job that pointless that you don't care about doing it?"

She turned around, and Draco was almost shocked by the disgust on her face, the disgust that had been mysteriously absent just minutes before.

"YOU? What in the world are you doing here, Malfoy?"

Draco scoffed. "Do you have a bad memory along with bad hair, Granger? I was just in your office, talking to you! Suffer any brain damage recently?"

She looked confused-only for a moment, but the expression was there!-and then rallied back to disgust. "Only while I'm forced to be around you, Malfoy. Only then. So, if you could please leave, I'd be much obliged."

"Oh, I'll be gone in a minute-I have no use hanging around lousy pathetic people with shitty jobs. But I do think you need your memory checked, Granger-you must not have remembered who I was in your office. That, or you were swept off my charm."

"Ha! Draco Malfoy have charm? You're more like a disease."

"That's not how you were acting five minutes ago. You were positively civil. Hoping to get lucky? Or were you just being stupid?"

Another pause, with another second-long confused look. "I was on the clock, Malfoy. I have to be civil. However, I'm not on duty now, so I can act as I please."

"Even if that wasn't shite-which it is, by the way-there's no way you act like that all the time. I think you're just brain-dead here."

"No, Malfoy, I'm really not. Please show yourself out now."

"I will...for now."

Draco showed himself out of the Ministry with a couple of key thoughts. One, Granger was still a boring hag. Two, she was acting rather stupid to boot. Three, he was going to annoy the hell out of her until she either dismantled the law out of sheer annoyance, or...dismantled the law. He was a Malfoy, Malfoys don't accept compromises. Besides, annoying Granger was going to be fun while she was on this politeness kick. She almost sounded good saying "Mr. Malfoy."...


	3. Chapter 3

"Greg, did Granger really freak you out that much? She didn't seem that frightening."

Shudders from Greg. Hmm.

* * *

Draco learned much more about the Granger's schedule, habits, and work duties over the next two weeks than he ever considered necessary.

The first few times, he tried showing up either in the mid-morning or mid-afternoon. Strangely, there was no Granger to be found at these times. Maybe she ran away from the tediousness, maybe she simply had scads of paper-pushing meetings to attend. Oh well.

He tried showing up a handful of times right at the end of the working day. While Granger could be found at this time, she might as well be absent. Apparently the Ministry had some asinine rule that all work done that day had to be documented in the last forty minutes of said day-not a minute before or after. This meant that most Ministry employees, unless they had someone to document their work for them (not Granger), spent that last forty minutes in a rush of triplicate forms and signing dotted lines. Granger was just too busy to be annoyed.

He drug himself out of bed once to be at the Ministry first thing. Here he met Inferi Granger. Apparently she was even less of a morning person than he was, and would not respond to outside stimuli until after her third cup of tea.

And Granger made her tea very slowly (using loose leaf and a hot water pot like the prissy swot she was, testing the temperature-hadn't she heard of tea bags or shops where they made the stuff for you?), and drank it even slower than it took to make the dratted cup. And then it would already be mid-morning, and she would disappear into Merlin-knew-where.

But he showed up during the lunch hour, and learned that this was the perfect time to harass Granger.

* * *

The day he showed up first thing, he got so frustrated by the protracted tea-drinking ritual that he left to return to his own company. But then his lunch appointment canceled, and he had no where to go. So, why not annoy Granger while she was trying to enjoy her probably prissy lunch?

That day it turned out she wasn't eating lunch, so he pulled out his own sandwich and proceeded to eat it in her office while asking every ridiculous question he could think of. He even had the ridiculous paperwork out in front of him, practically giving him a script for his annoyance routine.

"Granger, do I need any special inks?"

"Granger, my quill needs sharpening."

"Do they need all five of my middle names?"

"What about my secret Indonesian identity? I'd really rather keep that secret, you know..."

"Granger, I need more ink."

"Why do they need all of my fifth-degree relatives?"

"Would I really be arrested for not including crazy cousin Huberto?"

"Should I include all of my sexual encounters in the health history portion?"

All while lounging as impolitely as he could manage on her couch. And asking questions. And spilling ink occasionally on said couch. And nibbling his quill. And so on and so forth. It would have been quite an entertaining afternoon, if Granger had actually responded. Well, responded with any sort of emotion.

"No."

"Here is a penknife, Mr. Malfoy."

"Yes."

"No."

"Here is additional ink, Mr. Malfoy. Anything else?"

"For references, Mr. Malfoy."

"Potentially."

"No."

All while scribbling in some sort of journal. Ugh. How absolutely bland of her! For some reason the 'crazy cousin' question had gotten a twitch of the lips (not in humor, of course, more of the thinning McGonagall would show when she was displeased) but overall she had been completely, entirely, ridiculously civil. She hadn't even gotten mad at the ink spill, but simply waved her wand and made the spill disappear.

He would just have to try again. Maybe tomorrow.

* * *

Over the next week, Draco discovered that Granger never ate lunch. It seemed she was borderline apathetic, or whatever that odd Muggle disease was that made normal people turn into skeletons.

So he proceeded to bring the tastiest lunches he could think of, do his worst during the lunch hour, and try to annoy the crap out of Granger. Unfortunately, he had yet to break her poker face.

Needling her about being a great hero and her overachieving at Hogwarts, only to become some sort of paper pusher. He still wasn't clear on what her job exactly was, other than writing in journals and torturing poor potion makers. But annoying her on that subject earned no reply other than a "Thank you for sharing your opinion."

Ridiculous questions and whining about the paperwork occasionally made her lips twitch like McGonagall (did swotty bookworms get secret classes in how to do that?) but other than that resulted in bland, not-bleeding-helpful answers.

Ragging on Potter the rotter and the Weasel clan hardened her poker face, if that was possible.

And insulting Muggles (which had been his last resort, because, honestly, they weren't so bad. He was a good guy now, remember?) also simply hardened her poker face.

But he would keep trying, and maybe eventually that face would crack, and he would get this stupid law stopped.

* * *

When Draco approached the office door one afternoon, he heard voices. This struck him as strange, as he had never seen anyone else visit Granger's office. Intrigued, he waited outside-not listening in, as this was rude, but...oh all right, listening in. Information was power. He heard Granger's voice, clearly already exasperated, "...I still have no idea why you know about this..."

A male voice. Draco couldn't quite pinpoint it, but it sounded very familiar, in a nauseating sort of way. This voice sounded fustrated. "I told you already, I have clearance! Stop avoiding the subject!"

"As far as I can tell, I'm on subject. And no, I'm not quitting!" Granger again.

"This isn't worth it!" If Draco didn't know better, he would think this was...hold up, Granger was speaking again.

"What is this really about? I can have adventures too, you know! I don't need to be protected all the time!"

"This isn't about protecting you, Hermione." "Then those new wards on my flat just magically appeared there overnight, did they?"

"Well, magic was involved, sure, but...that was more Ginny's idea anyway."

"I'm sure, considering she was also the one responsible for the bodyguards-"

" -those were nice guys!-"

" -and the security system-"

"-I thought you liked that, you still have it-"

" -ENOUGH! It warms my heart that you care, Harry, but this is my career. And I don't want to give it up." Ha! No wonder Draco felt nauseous. Potter the Rotter was the arguer. "Hermione, how old are you?"

"What?"

What? Draco was just as confused as Granger sounded.

"How old are you?"

"I'm not sure that matters, Harry..."

"How old are you?!"

She sighed, sounding weary. "I'm old enough, Harry. I can handle it. There's forced retirement anyway, I can't do this forever." Huh. Draco didn't know that they forced you away from working with boredom.

"I'm just hoping you don't shatter on your way. Don't want to see SPEW go to waste, after all."

"Its S.P.E.W., Harry, and I gave that up ages ago!"

"Sure, and that's why you're not knitting any more...oh wait, there are your needles. Oops! Coming to dinner Sunday?"

"Like always. Tell Ron not to worry about Susan."

"Alright. I'll probably see you then, if not sooner."

Draco chose this point to stride back down the little hallway, to avoid giving the appearance of an eavesdropper. Luckily Potter didn't seem to notice the tall blonde man ducking into a maintenance closet. After the coast was clear, Draco headed back down the hallway for his daily ritual of annoying the Granger.

* * *

"So the Weasel and a Badger? Kinky." Draco had considered pretending he knew none of the conversation. But he also was desperate to crack her facade, and why not use sneakily obtained information?  
Granger froze in the process of pulling down some ungodly-heavy looking book from a top shelf. Said book fell on the ground, but she didn't notice. Her face was paler than usual, and she looked...anxious? Concerned? Frightened?

She said, more to herself, "Of course he would be here today. Damn."

Hey, it wasn't annoyance, but it was a crack?

She whispered, "How much did you hear?"

Hmm. Truth or lie? "All of it, of course. You weren't exactly quiet."

She strode over to him and grabbed his wrist. Odd. "You can not tell anyone. At all!"

He scoffed. "What, that the Weasel found a girl that can tolerate him?"

"You know what I'm talking about. This is top secret stuff, you can't just go gossiping to all your Slytherin buddies!"

He pushed her hand off his wrist. What was going on here? He would have loved to ask, but in for a penny-"No worries, Granger. Your secret is safe with me. As long as-"

She grabbed his arm again. "No, Malfoy, not good enough! You must not tell! Swear it!"

"Merlin, alright! I swear on my honor as a Malfoy that I won't share what I overheard." A safe promise, his honor was his own, not the family's. "Happy?"

She dropped his arm and turned sarcastic. "Thrilled. Thanks, Malfoy. "

"I'd say no problem, but there is one. This bloody law. I don't want it."

She sighed, and her lips gave that twitch again. "And I haven't been very helpful, have I? Continue coming in at lunch and I'll help you out as much as I can."

He smirked. Success from eavesdropping! Excellent work, Malfoy! "Alright, Granger. See you tomorrow."

She snickered. "Yeah. See you tomorrow, you git."

"Ouch, your words wound me."

"Sticks and stones."

"What?"

"Muggle saying. It is rather cliche."

"You know, I've been having an issue with cliches lately..."

"Go home, Malfoy."


End file.
